The blog for Charlsie Russell's Loblolly Writer's House. Love and romance, sex, violence, mystery, suspense, and happily ever after from the deepest of the Deep South. Subjects include writing, independent publishing, book marketing, and history.

This post continues discussion on the bill Benjamin Butler, chairman of the House
Committee on Reconstruction, introduced in the spring of 1869to bring Mississippi back into the loving arms of the
Union (yes, that is sarcasm you hear
in my words). Butler’s bill authorized the Mississippi constitutional
convention to be reassembled upon the call of the president of the convention. If the president hadn’t
called the convention back into session within thirty days, the commanding
general (that would be Adelbert Ames, Butler’s son-in-law) would do so. At the
time this bill was sent to the House, the president of Mississippi’s
constitutional convention (Alston Maggot—oh, I do apologize, I’m letting my
true feelings show again—that should read Alston Mygatt) was in town lobbying to have the rejected
constitution declared in force and would have been only too happy to reconvene
the convention. Under the Butler Bill, the reassembled convention was to have
the power to appoint a provisional governor and remove and appoint registrars
and judges of the election.

Excuse me? Where
did those powers—once exclusive to the commanding general—come from? Mine is a
rhetorical question, and I will here share my educated guess. On the surface it
would appear they originated the previous summer with Bingham’s bill, but these
are the very powers the constitutional convention presumed to usurp from
General Gillem during the winter/spring of 1868 while framing the constitution.
The change wouldn’t have made much difference with Ames, the Radical’s man, now
the commanding general, as well as the provisional governor, but it is telling.

And why the devil did Grant give Ames
command of the Fourth Military District to begin with? You are not going to
convince me it was an independent decision on his part. This takes
us back to Ames’ appointment as provisional governor by General McDowell during the latter’s
one-month tenure as commander of the Fourth District.

Succinctly put, Butler’s Bill meant turning over control of
Mississippi to the Black and Tan Convention, and that’s where control would
remain, even if the people of Mississippi defeated the constitution again and
again and again. And if they ratified the constitution—power would still be with that same group. Passage
of the Butler Bill meant no way out. Butler’s heavy-handed prejudice in
deferring to the convention hierarchy is indicative of overt tyranny that, it
would seem, the man didn’t believe he needed to disguise. The other thing
that’s interesting to note here is that when the 40th Congress closed on 4
March 1869, Ben Butler was not on the House Committee for Reconstruction. Two
weeks later, he’s not only on the committee, he’s chairing it. The
Massachusetts contingent had been switched out. The proof is in the pudding,
folks. Butler had been part of that wheeling and dealing that winter meant to
resolve the reentry of Mississippi, Virginia, and Texas on terms favorable to
the Radicals.

Henry L. Dawes, Butler’s colleague in the House and also
from Massachusetts, is on record for saying he’d as soon leave the choice of
the warden of the state prison at Charlestown to the convicts as to leave the
choice of provisional governor of Mississippi to the Mississippi Reconstruction
Convention. (It was the constitutional convention, but players were pretty much
one and the same, so why split hairs?) Dawes was a conservative Republican, not
a Radical. Not only that, but in Butler’s bill, the same
constitution—irrespective of the proscriptive clauses—was to be presented to
the people. This meant that the Mississippi constitutional convention
of 1868 would have full control of
all registrars—no other input required—and Butler’s son-in-law would be the
commanding general should military support be required (or desired) during the
election. As said earlier, the election was to be repeated exactly as before,
only this time the scenario would be “orchestrated” to ensure the
constitutional convention achieved the results it desired.

James B. Beck, the Democratic Representative from Kentucky
referenced above, took the floor and argued that President Grant appoint the
provisional governor for Mississippi. It is at this juncture that Butler takes
the time, apparently for the benefit of his fellow Republicans, like the
skeptical Dawes, because the Democrats surely already had it figured out, to
explain his rational for bestowing so much power in the constitutional
convention: He said, and I paraphrase, that the president of the Mississippi
Reconstruction convention (Eggleston), who had been the Republican candidate
for governor in Mississippi, would now appoint himself
governor. As he’d taken the surrender of Atlanta, so he’d accept the surrender
of Mississippi. Butler called the act merely good politics to accept the
radical schemes. If you don’t reconstruct Mississippi, he continued, you can’t
get the loyal legislature and consequently two “loyal” senators. Without those
two “loyal” senators you can’t pass the Fifteenth Amendment and you lose six
Northern states. Okay, Dawes probably had it figured out, too, but he wouldn’t
have been particularly in favor of radical schemes.

This is all so telling and dovetails
nicely with my thoughts on the Radicals being in trouble in the North and
determined to maintain control in the South (and hence overall). The other thing is Butler—what the
devil was his motivation? Greed would be my guess. He’d been a Democrat during
the course of his political life. Now he was a Republican working hand in hand
with the Radicals, but from his reference to the Radicals in the paragraph
above, he clearly didn’t consider himself a Radical. There were rumors at the time discussed in my narrative he
would return to the Democratic Party, so one must surmise it wasn’t ideology
driving the man. I have little doubt that his son-in-law’s being the
commanding general of the Fourth Military District as well as the provisional
governor of Mississippi piqued his interest regarding events in Mississippi—or
maybe the reverse is true, and he got Adelbert the job in order to further a
preexisting interest. His subsequently finagling his way into the chair of the
reconstruction committee testifies to his power, influence, and the corruption
of all.

Representative Beck countered that the President in his
appointment of the provisional governor would ensure a free and fair election,
and that the Mississippi constitutional convention would permit neither.

I’d like to elaborate further on the Butler Bill and James
Beck’s rebuttal on the House floor next time. In lieu of Butler’s frank
reasoning (or arrogant dearth of discretion, if you’d rather), the debate is
particularly enlightening and does much to explain the insurmountable (and
unsubstantiated) allegations of fraud, persecution, and sundry atrocities that
continue to be attributed to the white Southerner over the past century and a
half regarding electioneering in the post-war South.

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The Author

About Me

Author of
historical suspense set in my home state of Mississippi: Love, romance,
sex, violence, mystery, and suspense set in the deepest of the Deep South. I
liken my work to a cross between Frank Yerby's bitter beauty of the South
and the romance and happily-ever-after of Zane Grey. I'm a conservative
believer in "state rights."